


the drive down i-95

by MysteryMe110



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, Everybody Loves Steve Rogers, Family Fluff, Gen, Jewish Steve Rogers, M/M, Team Cap - Freeform, only very slightly implied but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteryMe110/pseuds/MysteryMe110
Summary: In truth, Steve picks the middle seat for the same reason he does anything these days: he likes being between Sam and Natasha, her at the wheel and him in shotgun, Steve with the lucky opportunity to watch both their faces as they laugh, in the position to catch their smiles and their sarcastic side-eyes and every subtle scrunch of the brow. It’s more than just a safety thing (though it does, it does make him feel safe)—it’s the simple embarrassment of loving them so much, of not being able to imagine his life without them. Once, he’d felt this way about the Howling Commandoes. But sometimes, even if you tried your damnedest to prevent it, family shifted. And he misses what it had been, of course he does, but he can hardly lament the blessing that family has become to him now.(I.E. Steve loves his friends a lot. And today they prove how much they love him back.)





	the drive down i-95

He’s in the backseat of an old, rust-colored Volkswagen that Natasha has swiped from a shady dealership, and upfront maybe the AC works but back here it’s uncomfortably warm and smells like someone’s old tennis shoes. They’re back in the States for once (it’s been a while) and they’ve been driving up I-95 for the past three and a half hours and have just left a gas station they stopped at for snacks and a bathroom break. Steve had stayed inside to watch the car, and Sam had bought him back a hotdog. It rests uneaten in the cup holder by the left window, because Steve took one bite and it was terrible. Natasha says that, frankly, she isn’t even sure if it’s actually meat. Sam, who used to make meals out of gas station hotdogs in college, doesn’t understand what the problem is.

 

No one understands why Steve won’t sit in a window seat, to rest his head for the long ride, or at least have something to entertain himself with (if you can call the endless, tedious rush of the I-95 ‘entertainment’). Natasha says, “You can’t possibly be _carsick_ , you ride a motorcycle.” Sam adds, “And the quinjet.”

 

“In my defense,” says Steve. “The quinjet’s much smoother. And I’m not carsick. I just like being able to see where we’re going.”

 

“I’ll switch with you,” Sam suggests.

 

“Don’t bother,” says Steve. “Thanks, but this is fine.”

 

In truth, he picks the middle seat for the same reason he does anything these days: he likes being between Sam and Natasha, her at the wheel and him in shotgun, Steve with the lucky opportunity to watch both their faces as they laugh, in the position to catch their smiles and their sarcastic side-eyes and every subtle scrunch of the brow. It’s more than just a safety thing (though it does, it _does_ make him feel safe)—it’s the simple embarrassment of loving them so much, of not being able to imagine his life without them. Once, he’d felt this way about the Howling Commandoes. But sometimes, even if you tried your damnedest to prevent it, family shifted. And he misses what it had been, of course he does, but he can hardly lament the blessing that family has become to him now.

 

It’s been mostly silent for the past forty minutes, little to no chatter, because they’re listening to an NPR episode about the psychological roots of political ideology (Steve’s been crazy about podcasts since Sam introduced them to him a year and a half ago—it just feels so familiar, like snuggling up to his mother while she tinkered with the radio news before bed). But when the episode finishes, and Sam and Natasha start arguing over what to listen to next (Sam wants another podcast, Natasha says her brain is fried from all the caffeine and to _please_ give her an hour of brainless music, preferably pop), Steve knows it’s now or never (well, not _never_ , but now or he doesn’t know when), so he chimes up, “Hey, uh… I actually have something I need to talk to you two about, if that’s alright.” And they shut up immediately.

 

“Sure, man,” says Sam. “What’s up?” And he tries to say it casually, shrug the words off, but there’s a prickle of urgency in the way his eyes flicker. Steve can see the strain of his spine as he twists it farther than it can comfortably go. Natasha keeps her head foreword (thank God—she _is_ the driver, after all) but Steve can see her eyes on him through the rearview mirror. She’s gone expressionless, which is always how he can tell that she’s concerned.

 

Well, he can’t blame them for these reactions, can he? Last time he had news, it wasn’t exactly of the positive sort. _Hey Sam, Nat, the reason we can’t rely on Tony’s help anymore is that the Winter Soldier murdered both his parents and to stop him from killing Bucky I had to disable his suit and leave him behind in Siberia. And, oh, he took the shield too._

But it’s not like that today! It isn’t necessarily _good_ news, but more like… neutral. Just news. Not even news, just fact. Just… information. Something he thinks they deserve to know, even if a secret, selfish part of him wants to keep it only and entirely to himself.

 

“You know you have the right,” says Bucky. “You don’t owe it to anybody.”

 

And Steve knows that. But he also knows he can’t keep hiding. He’s a bad liar, for one, and for another… for another, these two are his best friends in the world, and somehow it hurts for them not to know. More than it hurts for him to tell them.

 

Since fleeing Siberia, and breaking Sam and Wanda and the others out of prison, Steve’s been making regular visits (or as regular as he can get them) to Wakanda. At first, to check on Bucky’s body in cryo, to see how Shuri was getting along with the deprogramming. Then, to check on the man himself—Bucky, or whatever was left of him.

 

Bucky had fretted to him a few times, about how he wasn’t the same anymore, wouldn’t ever be again, and though the words shook him (no, not the words—the fear behind them) Steve would fight to keep himself straight-faced and would say back, always and without fail, “You don’t have to be the same. You don’t have to be anything. Whoever you are, just be it, and know that I’ll be here no matter what.”

 

It’s a cliché, he knows that. But Steve is prone to those, and how can he help the truth?

 

Twice, Steve has brought his full team with him to Wakanda—meaning Nat, Sam, and Wanda. The latter of which has been off on a personal mission for the last three weeks, though Steve suspects that the ‘personal’ aspect of it has more or less to do with Vision. Nat and Wanda argue about it sometimes (“We’re your _team_ , your _family_ , you can’t go sneaking off and lying to us, Wanda!”) but Steve doesn’t mind it. She’s young. She’s in love. With Wanda and Vision, he sees a little of what he and Peggy had once been. Or, to be more frank, what they _could’ve_ been, had time been kind to them, had things not ended the way that they had.

 

Even away from Vis, Wanda had loved Wakanda. They all had. It was truly the only part of their now two-or-so years on the run that had felt like a vacation, like a _treat_. Steve would spend the days catching up with Bucky, re-learning him, going to dinners with the royal family (T’Challa really was a blessing of a human being) and, when he had the time, painting the Wakandan sunsets, then the water, then the shrubbery, and—if he had the time and the permission—the people. Sam was more interested in talking than painting, and he made a lot of friends in a short span of time, learned the culture and the customs, talking history for hours with Okoye. Nat, meanwhile, had the time of her life training with the Dora Milaje, swimming and sunbathing and begging Steve for massages when she was sore, and Wanda had liked the children and they had liked her twice as fiercely. She showed them a little of her magic and they were absolutely _enchanted_ by it _._ She and Shuri, in particular, grew close.

 

But that was a year ago now (or more? or less? time was iffy in this eternal state of running and hiding) and Steve’s last four or so visits had been made quietly, independently, whenever he could snatch the time or, alternatively, when missions got him so visibly tense and (occasionally) short-fused that Nat or Wanda would sit him down and Sam would pat him on the back and say, “Steve, dude, you need a break.” And when Steve would try and argue, Nat would say (through Wanda’s hopeless attempts to shush her), “What he really means is that we need a break from _you_.”

 

They did that, sometimes. Let one of the four of them take off for a little while, let off some steam, come back when they were ready to fight again. Wanda spent her time with Vision, Sam went off to visit family (his mother or his sister, usually), and Steve still didn’t know where the hell Nat went when she was gone, but she always came back smelling faintly of firewood and with noticeable tan lines on her legs and shoulders. Steve suspected Clint’s farm, though he would never ask her.

 

These last three weeks have been Wanda’s off-time, but Steve’s wasn’t long past. A month ago, he’d spent a good fortnight away in his private paradise while three of his best friends in the world risked their lives in under-cover shootouts and bounced between cockroach-infested motels.

 

The last visit had been an important one, though, because he’d realized things he hadn’t known before (things he certainly should have realized sooner) and this is why what’s happening is happening, this is why Steve currently sits in the middle-back seat of a stolen Volkswagen between his closest friends and allies, ready to share information about himself he can’t yet quite wrap his mouth around.

 

“Steve?” Sam prods gently, and Steve must’ve been quiet for too long a stretch of time because the concern on their faces is starting to slip into acute worry. “Need a minute?”

 

“Uh… no,” says Steve. “No, I don’t.”

 

But his hands are fists at his sides and they’re trembling. The car is barreling down I-95 at what must’ve been fifteen miles over the speed limit and this is why they let Natasha drive, because if it were Steve it would’ve been at least twenty-five.

 

“Steve, spit it out,” says Nat, and if he were any less observant he might not have noticed that she’s clenching her hands around the steering wheel. They’re turning white with blood-loss.

 

“Right,” says Steve. “I…” Why does this have to be so hard? Why does he have to make it so? “When I was away, last month…”

 

“In Wakanda,” chimes in Nat.

 

“Yeah, in Wakanda—”

 

“With Bucky,” chimes in Nat.

 

“Yeah, with Bucky—”

 

“And—”

 

“Let him speak,” says Sam, and Nat isn’t usually one for taking orders, but she shuts up.

 

“I…” starts Steve again, and his stomach churns, and his friends’ faces look so scared now and he just wants to reassure them: _nothing’s wrong, nothing is wrong, this is just something I have to do_. “With Bucky.” But that’s too soon. He starts over. “I really appreciate you two, and Wanda, giving me the time to visit him. For picking up the slack for me.”

 

“Of course, Steve,” says Sam. “You do the same for us.”

 

“Yeah,” says Steve. “I know, but…” He thinks carefully through his next few sentences. “But it’s a big burden you two carry for me, so that I can be with Bucky, and it’s not just with Wakanda. The reason we’re in this situation in the first place is because I couldn’t make it work out with Tony, because I had to save Bucky’s life even if it meant—”

 

“Steve,” says Natasha. “He’s your best friend. Anybody would have done the same in your shoes.”

 

“But even so, there were consequences to that decision, and I had to drag you all along with me into those consequences, and—no, Sam, this isn’t some self-deprecating rant, that’s not where I’m trying to go with this. I—” Steve cuts himself off. He sighs. He tries again. “I just feel like, for everything you two have had to give up for me, for Bucky, I owe you the truth. The full truth. And there’s something I’ve been keeping from the both of you.”

 

And the car trembles on the highway, but it’s just some shoddy paving and Natasha’s hands are as steady as ever (as she told him once, _an assassin never shakes_ ), except she’s silent and Sam’s silent and Steve knows what they’re waiting for, knows he’s the only person who can give it to them.

 

“Just so you know,” he says, tasting his pulse in his esophagus, halfway convinced he’s going to upchuck it, “Bucky and I have started seeing each other. Romantically.”

 

There’s a beat of stunned silence ( _okay,_ maybe not stunned, maybe Steve’s reading into this, maybe they’re just processing it) and then this shitty Volkswagen of theirs hits another section of bad paving and the subsequent jostling somehow turns the radio on, and it starts playing—of all things— _Africa_ by Toto. Sam quickly shuts it off.

 

“Steve…” Sam starts to say, and his tone is overwhelmingly soft and his spine is straining more than ever and Steve is internally preparing himself for whatever’s about to be said to him when, “Oh, _shit_ , Natasha!”

 

She’s turned her blinkers on and is beginning to shift the car one, then two, lanes to the right. At least two nearby cars angrily honk at her.

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sam yells. “Nat, we’re on an _interstate_.”

 

It takes Steve a few seconds to process what’s happening, as Natasha brings the car to the right-most lane and then to the right of that, in an area thankfully devoid of guard rails, first the crunch of gravel and then the smooth slide of wild grass.

 

“Nat…” says Steve dumbly, as she slows the car to a jostling stop. “You know you can’t pull over on a highway…”

 

But Natasha isn’t listening, doesn’t even seem to be hearing. She takes the keys and turns them. The engine shudders to a stop. Then she opens the door and steps out of the car.

 

Steve doesn’t understand. Has he upset her in some way? Has he said something wrong? Is it… is it…

 

Natasha throws open Steve’s passenger door, and then promptly throws herself on top of him.

 

“Nat—” starts Steve, but she cuts him off.

 

“I am so, so proud of you,” she whispers into his neck, and her hands are squeezing so tightly around his chest and over his back he thinks she’ll never let him go, and she just keeps on saying it, like it’s an anthem she’s practiced in her sleep: “I’m so proud of you. I’m so happy you’ve found this.”

 

And Steve can’t help himself. His eyes water, and he holds her back.

 

Upfront, Steve hears the click of Sam unbuckling. Sam turns around (his spine mercilessly freed from that unnatural twist) and crouches under the roof of the car. He’s got his hand on Steve’s closest shoulder and he’s smiling, and something about the gap in Sam’s smile always puts Steve mysteriously at ease.

 

“Good for you, man,” he says. “Guess Nat and I got you leashed at last, huh?”

 

Nat, still buried in Steve’s neck, tilts her head to him and says, “Don’t act like you put any effort into it whatsoever.”

 

And he’s laughing and she is and then Steve is, too, and nobody’s mentioning… nobody’s saying anything about…

 

“I think I loved him then, too,” says Steve. “I think I always did, but I never knew it because I never _could_ know it, because it was just another thing that would’ve marked me different, would’ve gotten me killed, y’know. And it’s not like…” He trails off momentarily, but he finds himself again. “I supported it back then, of course I did. I just didn’t know _I_ was one, couldn’t believe myself to be, there were already so many things…”

 

He’s thinking about the Eugenics Movement. About being so broke that some nights he and his mom went to sleep without heat in the winter, without dinner apart from stale bread and water. About being the son of two immigrants. Of a single, working mother. And Mom had never told him this, but he saw her—once—wearing a Star of David as a necklace, which she tucked under her blouse after it slipped out and had never appeared again. To be all of that was one thing, was hard enough as it was. But to be queer, to be queer _too_ —

 

“You are whoever you are, Steve,” says Sam. “And, I mean this, we love you.”

 

“We love you,” chokes out Nat against his collar, and Steve’s eyes tear up and he’s never felt so seen or so worthy or like none of those things, none of the things that he’s been laughed at or tormented or _hated_ over for all his life matter in the slightest. Or, more than that, they matter but in a _good_ way, they matter because they are a part of who he is and what he will be and there’s no shame in what defines you. Just pride. Just gratitude.

 

“Shit, that’s it,” says Sam, and he kicks open the door on his side and says, “Get out of the car, man, I’m not watching this any longer.”

 

So Steve slips out of Natasha’s iron grip (somehow) and out of the passenger door and once he does Sam is hugging him too, arms around his neck, smile wide and gapped and bright as ever.

 

“Thanks for telling us,” he says, and tightens his grip, and Natasha slips silently behind them to join the party, arms snaking around Steve’s waist.

 

“I… I’m bisexual,” says Steve, just to get the word out there, the one he first heard from Shuri (before even she suspected there might be something going on between the two of them, when Bucky was still in ice and she was grilling him on what it was like being thrust seventy-years into the future, what had changed and what hadn’t). This is the first time, though, that he’s said it aloud. Said it in regards to himself. He repeats the word a few times in his head, to try and get a stronger taste of it. A sense of whether or not it fits.

 

Sam slowly slides his arms away from Steve, then takes a step back (though Natasha is still pressed against him). His eyes are glowing with moisture, reflecting against the dimming sunlight, and Sam’s smiling as he says, “Bucky, huh? Personally, I think you could do better, but if you’re happy—”

 

Steve laughs and punches him lightly on the shoulder. Natasha laughs harder, finally slides away from Steve, and responds, “Are you kidding? If anything, _Steve’s_ the one reaching. That man is sexy as all hell.”

 

“Am _I_ kidding? Have you seen his greasy-ass hair?”

 

“It’s _luxurious_. And, fuck, that metal arm…”

 

“That’s enough,” says Steve, laughing and taking a moment to wipe the moisture from his eyes. “Sorry, Nat, but he’s taken.”

 

“Phooey.”

 

They return to the car not long afterwards, because a cop car pulls up and Natasha, thinking quickly, stabs one of the tires, while Steve hides his face in his phone and Sam grabs a spare from the trunk. Thankfully, the cop only asks Natasha for her license, and she has the most convincing fake of the three of them and is the best (naturally) at pretending it’s real.

  
“You wanna take the front this time?” Sam asks, once the cop leaves and the tire is changed and they all pack back into the car.

  
“No,” says Steve, scooting back into the middle seat. “I’m good here.”

 

And he rests his head against the cushion as Sam turns back on another episode of NPR, and Nat picks back up fifteen miles above the speed limit, and from his pocket Steve pulls out his phone and texts Bucky: _They took it well._

_I knew they would,_ Buck responds, almost immediately. _Times have changed._

_People are the same,_ Steve writes back, and they make plans to skype the next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> If people like this, I might expand it a few extra chapters, with how Steve comes out to Wanda, Tony, Thor, and the other revengers respectively. Let me know your thoughts!


End file.
